


There's Comfort In The Bottom Of A Swimming Pool

by TinyAndAngry



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extended Metaphors, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, I promise it gets better, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Mentions of Drowning, One Shot, Protective Peter Parker, Rain, Referenced Drowning, Thunderstorms, Tony Stark Angst, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Whump, im sorry, no beta we die like men, talk of drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyAndAngry/pseuds/TinyAndAngry
Summary: There was a certain type of silence when it rained, and Tony Stark knew that.  He knew all too well of the way pouring rain and thunder covered up the usually ever-present sounds of New York City, leaving him with only a blank sort of white noise, but not the comforting type.  It’s the type of white noise that rings in his ears, leaving him incapable of hearing anything else, thus left completely to the mercy of the deafening storm.ORTony doesn't like silence, Peter comforts him, and I like extended metaphors
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	There's Comfort In The Bottom Of A Swimming Pool

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shelter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736602) by [unluckyolive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckyolive/pseuds/unluckyolive). 



> "There's comfort in the bottom of a swimming pool  
> I'm holding my breath for you  
> There's no doubt in my mind  
> That if you could, then you would try  
> To crack my ribcage open  
> And pull my heart right through"  
> -The Front Bottoms, Swimming Pool
> 
> Trigger Warning: Extensive talk of drowning (nobody actually drowns)

There was a certain type of silence when it rained. Not quite silent. Not quite noise. It was somewhere in between. It was the type of silence when a conversation died, leaving unspoken words drifting, rarely ever spoken. It was the type of silence when you admit something to a person, letting the confession just hang in the air, filling up the space in between. It was the type of silence when you feel truly alone, as if the rest of the universe isn’t even real and time isn’t moving, letting you just float through an endless abyss, unaware of the world moving around you.

There was a certain type of silence when it rained, and Tony Stark knew that. He knew all too well of the way pouring rain and thunder covered up the usually ever-present sounds of New York City, leaving him with only a blank sort of white noise, but not the comforting type. It’s the type of white noise that rings in his ears, leaving him incapable of hearing anything else, thus left completely to the mercy of the deafening storm.

Tony Stark felt like he was drowning in a torrent of white noise, with water filling his lungs, yet he didn’t feel the pain of trying to breathe in and only letting more of the rainstorm push the oxygen out of his mouth. No, he was numb, as if sinking down, down, down the ocean of background noise, helpless yet not attempting to fight the currents. There was no feeling even partially close to drowning in noise yet floating in an abyss at the same moment.

It was paralyzing. He felt as if he couldn’t move his limbs in even the slightest way. He couldn’t stand up from the couch or turn on the TV to drown out the white noise or shift to lie down in an attempt to sleep through the storm. No, he was stuck in place, staring at the window as the rain poured from the clouds and cascaded down the windows and blurred the lamp posts and glowing billboards until they were nothing but glints of lights, like dulling stars as they lost their shine and died out with no regard for how humans idolized their radiance.

Tony Stark was on the edge of completely shut down, as if on the boundary of life and barely holding on. Still, though, he held on, as if there was something that he, even in his detached state, knew that he had to hold on for. He grasped onto the concept of a glint of light above the ocean he was drowning in, dulled by the crashing waves above him, but still there and still a sign of hope.

The elevator doors opening pulled the man out of his stupor as they revealed that small smudge of light above the ocean in the form of a slightly drenched Peter Parker, carrying a soaked umbrella that he proceeded to set down on the umbrella rack near the elevator doors. Just the appearance of drew some of the numbness out of Tony’s lungs and brought back even just a fraction of his ability to move. He sat up further, gratefulness surging through him for being able to so much as straighten his back and move his head, finally pulling his eyes away from the downpour separated from him by only a couple dozen feet and a pane of glass.

The two met eyes, crashing waves meeting the calm sea, and there was no silent conversation between them, no agreement reached or decision made, only an unexpressed understanding of an indescribable feeling that they somehow have both possessed at some moment. Without words, spoken or unspoken, Peter lightly walks forward, stepping as though the floor could give way to the raging sea at any moment, and settles beside Tony on the couch, softly removing his shoes and curling up so his chin is delicately placed upon his knees as if the fetal position would protect him from the ocean of white noise.

Ever so gently, Peter leans against Tony’s side and sets his head on the genius’s shoulder, causing the man to let out a soft exhale as if some of the weight stacked up upon his shoulders had been lifted off just enough for him to release some of the tension in his shoulders and swim up a little bit until he wasn’t trapped against the ocean floor, and, instead, hovering a few feet above the jagged, rocky ground.

There was no attempt to pull him up from under the waves, no pursuit to make it seem like it was all okay, no undertaking to try and save the man. No, there was only an understanding that this was a time to drift and be carried along with the tide without feeling as if he was so helpless as to need to be rescued. Peter let him stray among the dark ocean and wallow near the bottom of the now calmer waters.

As the ocean became gentler, the crushing waves became lighter, allowing Tony to drift up, up, up as Peter let himself float downwards through the murky waters to meet him, not as a savior, but as comfort on the way back to the top with a promise of air to enter his water-filled lungs and sunlight to dry his skin of the ocean’s salty waves. And as they met, the surface almost in reach, it felt less like an ocean and more like they had found themselves at the bottom of a swimming pool, with bluer waters and sunlight filtering in and reaching them.

They swam to the top together and as they broke through the surface, Tony leaned into Peter’s touch and risked a glance back at the window. Dark clouds were beginning to disperse as if the rain had realized that he had, in fact, made his way through the rough tides without needing to be rescued and saw that he was had never strayed too far from the coastline after all. Raindrops still covered the window, obscuring the view of the city, but the lights were starting to shine through once more and the sounds of the city rose up from streets down below. The storm hadn’t made the oceans rise and the waves choppy. The storm had done nothing but block the world off from where Tony sat, making him feel as if the world had stopped spinning and time had stopped moving and the stars had stopped shining and the world had nobody else except him, sitting in his living room and sinking through a silent abyss of nothingness.

As Tony brought up his hand and began to run his fingers through Peter’s curls, he began to think that _maybe he hadn’t drowned at all._

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people who follow my works are waiting for the next chapter of Cinnamon Hot Chocolate, but this is a one shot that I whipped up while working on the next part of CHC. I hope y'all liked it!


End file.
